Wednesday, July 19: The Importance of Love

THE IMPORTANCE OF LOVE
Love is a good thing, and real love is hard to come to and easy to dwell in. What the heck does that mean?

It means, once we let go of all our "conditions," to love is as free and easy and liberating as anything in life. It allows our life to soar the way we know it's meant to soar.

It means we usually love those who treat us well and get snarly when they don’t treat us well, and scorn or dislike or avoid/dislike or avoid/hate those who don’t treat us with whatever standards of respect and attention and appreciation we imagine we “need” from the outside world.

This “need “ idea is nonsense, a good way to stay trapped in believing that it is the outside world’s job to make us happy. From the Byron Katie work, after we’ve asked the four questions ( Is it true? Can I absolutely know it’s true? How do I react when I attach to the thought? Who would I be without attaching to/ believing in the thought?) we do the turn around. This often leads to wisdom and freedom.

I need your appreciation, turns around to I need my own appreciation. I need your attention, respect, approval, all turn us back to ourselves.

And so what does this have to do with love?

Love is loving that other person, or a whole batch of people, or everyone, for what they are, without demanding that they shape up. You can still wish they could come to the present or be less war-like, or smile more, or drive their cars less, or say nicer things about you, but the really happy and serene and peaceful inner from freedom is to love ‘em anyway.

How?

Do the Work of Byron Katie.

Or, come into the present and see if from that peaceful and serene place you aren’t so bothered by their shenanigans.

Or, do an experiment: try loving them and disliking them and hating them, and see the effects of each variety on your inner weather.

Or, what else can you come up with? (There are ideas floating around that we are all one. What would that do to our dislikes and hatreds?)

Ultimately, it’s our life, our inner weather. If we are happy, if we aren’t in love with the people around us, what can of existence are we having on this Earth. And, hey, while we are at it, loving the Earth is a sweet way to be, too. Don’t have time for that sort of nonsense? Are you sure??